by John Suchet
“I care little about Salzburg and nothing at all about the archbishop and I shit on both of them.”
This might seem to us a strange decision, unless perhaps the infant was unwell. Wouldn’t a major motive for the trip be for baby Raimund to meet his grandfather and aunt? What must Leopold and Nannerl have thought when Mozart and his wife arrived without their baby? And surely the couple themselves, newly parents, must have felt the absence of their newborn acutely?
We cannot know any of this for certain, since Mozart does not mention the decision in a letter. Similarly there is scant information about the visit to Salzburg, for the simple reason that when the family was together, no letters were being written.
Most of what we know comes from entries Nannerl made in her diary, and for the most part these are brief and formal. Other information comes from Constanze herself, recalling events forty years later.
We know enough, however, to be able to say that the visit was hardly a successful one. If reconciliation was its purpose, it fell far short of achieving it.
Mozart and his wife arrived in Salzburg on 29 July 1783. It was the first time Mozart had set foot in his home city for nearly three years.
We have no information on how the initial family reunion went, but we can assume it was frosty, or at least cool. Relations between father and son had to all intents and purposes broken down. Mozart was arriving home with a wife his father had fought tooth and nail to stop him marrying.
Similarly, Nannerl had taken her father’s side over the marriage. She had added postscripts to her father’s letters, accusing Mozart of forsaking family obligations for a woman who was unworthy of him, and who she accuses in harsh language of being an interloper. Along with her father, she too had refused to give her blessing to the marriage.
Constanze herself had tried more than once to repair things. She wrote to Nannerl ahead of the wedding asking for her friendship, but was rebuffed. She tried again, a week before the wedding, and was rebuffed again.
Constanze did not conceal her hurt. ‘All that I deserve is that for the love of God you should suffer me as you do all the others.’31 Still to no avail. Fully a year later Constanze and her husband arrive in Salzburg.
Constanze was by now thoroughly upset at the refusal of the Mozarts – father and daughter – to accept her. And she gave a telling anecdote, again many decades later, of how the hurt affected her husband.
One night the family, all four of them, were singing the quartet from Mozart’s opera Idomeneo. At this point in the opera Idomeneo’s son is having to take leave of his father, who is behaving irrationally towards him.
Wolfgang, his wife recounts, ‘burst into tears and left the room and it was some time before he could be consoled’.32 Leopold and his daughter were witness to this, and still relations were not repaired.
Musically, at least, as this incident reveals, the family was united. All four were highly accomplished musicians (something of an understatement as far as one of them is concerned), and there was by all accounts much music-making in the Tanzmeisterhaus. It is likely that during this stay Mozart composed his three piano sonatas, K. 330–32, and Nannerl will have been the first to play them.
Musical activities reached their peak with the performance of Mozart’s newly composed Mass in C minor (K. 427). This was performed in St. Peter’s Abbey on 26 October with Constanze herself as first soprano soloist.
Significantly the performance did not take place in the cathedral, and although many of Mozart’s former musical colleagues at court took part, Archbishop Colloredo himself stayed away. So much for Mozart’s fears he might be arrested if he set foot in Salzburg.
The Mass in C minor is a mighty work, and it must have left both performers and audiences stunned with its sheer depth and complexity. Yet Nannerl, in her diary, simply records that it took place, and that her sister-in-law had sung.
Similarly, after Mozart and Constanze left Salzburg the following day, Nannerl wrote the briefest entry in her diary: ‘At half past 9 o’clock my brother and sister-in-law departed.’33 In fact this farewell was their last. They would never see each other again.
Right to the last, relationships remained unrepaired. As she and her husband left, Constanze asked her father-in-law if she might take as a memento one of the many gifts her husband had received on his earlier travels. Leopold refused.
The stay in Salzburg had lasted for a little under three months, and it must have been painful from start to finish. Even a tragedy, totally unexpected, failed to bring the family any closer together.
While in Salzburg, Mozart and his wife received the dreadful news from Vienna that their baby son, Raimund Leopold, had died. All they were told was that he suffered from intestinal cramps and died on 19 August 1783, at the age of just two months and two days.
No letters regarding this have survived, so we cannot know the effect it had on the family. Did Leopold castigate his son for leaving the baby behind in Vienna? Did he regret never having had the chance to see his grandson? We can only surmise.
We can be sure of one thing: that little Raimund’s death went no way towards healing the cracks in the family relationships.
What strikes me as even more extraordinary is that we have no evidence of how Wolfgang and Constanze themselves were affected by their son’s death. Nannerl wrote nothing in her diary. Close friends – musical colleagues, certainly – were frequent visitors, yet none (as far as I am aware) has left any account.
Even Mozart himself is practically silent on the matter. Once back in Vienna, he and his wife must have been fully informed as to what had happened, and why the child could not be saved. Yet there is not a word from him in letters to his father for almost two months, and even then it is the briefest reference, buried towards the end of a letter which is mostly about various opera librettos. Just before his farewells, Mozart writes: ‘We are both very sad about our poor, bonny, fat, darling little boy.’ And with just those few words, Mozart and Constanze’s first child passes into history.
But sadness certainly did not dull Mozart’s creative genius. He was about to embark on his golden years, creating his greatest works. It began as soon as they embarked on the journey from Salzburg back to Vienna.
The couple stopped off in Linz, where Mozart was invited to give a concert at the Linz theatre four days after arriving. But he had forgotten to bring a symphony with him. So he dashed one off ‘at breakneck speed, for it has to be finished in time’.
In under four days he completed his Symphony No. 36 (K. 425), known, for obvious reasons, as the ‘Linz’. It is one of his finest, and is just the beginning of an extraordinary burst of creativity.
Mozart is a composer who does not have to wait for the Muse to inspire him. He composes because he has to, and often for mundane reasons. He has agreed to give a concert in Linz, he has no symphony, so the easy answer (easy for him) is to write one.
This would remain the pattern for the rest of his life. Musically he is approaching his zenith. In his private life too, he and Constanze are soon to experience joy.
That difficult, awkward, tense – but necessary – visit to his father and sister in Salzburg is behind him. The way forward is clear.
* Two decades later Beethoven would defeat one of Europe’s most celebrated pianists, Daniel Steibelt, in an improvisation contest, and refuse to take part in any more.
* A rare flash of humour in his letters, reversing his wife’s age.
* Mozart as usual cavalier with his spelling of proper names.
The new year, 1784, it is not an exaggeration to say, brought a new life for Mozart, both musically and at home. Constanze was soon pregnant again. ‘She finds it difficult to remain seated for long, because our future son and heir gives her no peace,’ he writes.
Early in the year they moved into a spacious apartment in a brand-new building on the Graben, named the Trattnerhof after its owner. The building housed a large hall in which concerts could be given, and this was one of the
factors that helped Mozart make an inspired decision, a radical departure from the norm.
It was usual for a composer or performer to hire one of the court theatres for a benefit concert, but he could not expect to be offered more than a single date in a year. This was unlikely to bring in much money; in fact it could even result in a loss. He hit on the idea of using not court theatres with all their formalities and conditions, but rather unconventional – and smaller – venues such as the Trattnerhof and the Mehlgrube (a restaurant with an adjoining ballroom, built on the site of a former flour store).
Being Mozart, he could offer something extra that no other musician in Vienna could: he would perform his own piano concertos. From the subscribers’ point of view, this would represent true value for money – something they could not get elsewhere. From his point of view, it meant he could control every aspect of the concert, and therefore reap maximum profit.
He decided to put on three subscription concerts at the Trattnerhof, and again, being Mozart, he decided to compose three new piano concertos, one for each of the concerts.
In the space of a year he composed no fewer than six new piano concertos, Nos. 14–19 (K. 449–51, 453, 456 and 459). During 1784 he presented a series of three subscription concerts at the Trattnerhof. The following year he gave a series of six concerts at the Mehlgrube.
In addition to this he performed privately in aristocratic salons at least eighteen times in 1784, and five times in 1785. In the period of winter 1782–3 to April 1786 he composed no fewer than fourteen piano concertos.
After performing one of these concertos (probably No. 14), he wrote to his father:
The first concert on 17th of this month went very well – the hall was filled to the brim; – and the New Concerto that I performed won extraordinary applause; wherever I go now people speak in praise of that concert.
He was the toast of Vienna. There was no one else who could touch him, or even come close.
Add to this the personal joy of the arrival of a son. On 21 September 1784, Constanze gave birth to a boy and he was named Karl Thomas. Once again friends noted how like his father the baby looked.
But something had to give, and it was Mozart’s health. In August he went to the Burgtheater to see the new opera by Paisiello. Just a week before Karl Thomas was born, he wrote to his father that at the performance he sweated so profusely that his clothes were drenched. He looked for his servant, who had his overcoat, but there was an order forbidding servants to enter the theatre by the main doors. So Mozart had to go out into the cold night air to find him.
The result was that he developed rheumatic fever. For four days running, at the same hour each day, he had a ‘fearful attack of colic, which ended each time with vomiting’.
It must have made for a difficult few weeks in the Mozart household. Constanze was in the last stages of pregnancy; at the same time her husband was seriously ill with rheumatic fever. All this at a time when he was fully stretched with concert performances, not to mention salon recitals and teaching.
Mozart goes into no further details in his letters, but it appears he recovered – he was not the only one, apparently many in Vienna came down with the same illness – and his wife was safely delivered of a healthy boy.
Within a short time, Mozart decided he would make use of the income he was now generating. The subscription concerts were proving to be a huge success. In the space of three years, his earnings had more than tripled from just over 1,000 florins to nearly 4,000.*
With a growing family, an ever increasing number of pupils coming to see him, not to mention musical colleagues, publishers, copyists, as well as servants, he felt the need for a larger apartment. A week after Karl Thomas’s birth, and with his own health still fragile, he moved the family into a much larger apartment in the Domgasse, in the shadow of St Stephen’s Cathedral.†
It was a hugely prestigious address, and the apartment had a ceiling of stuccoed marble. The rooms were large, and there was space enough in the main salon for a chamber ensemble to play before an audience. Mozart’s stock rose with the aristocracy among whom he now moved so freely. But he had not sat down and done his sums.
The rent was three times more than he had paid in the Trattnerhof. He now had to find 460 florins per month.* That is a large sum of money by any standards. On top of that, he had a wife and growing child to support, as well as a retinue of servants. To have servants might seem to us today to be an unnecessary extravagance, but given the circles in which he moved, it was to be expected.
To compound matters, he started spending money liberally. He bought a new fortepiano with a specially constructed pedal attachment. He owned several other musical instruments. He also had his own carriage. In preparation for a trip to Munich he had six pairs of shoes made, which his father found rather excessive. The trip was ultimately cancelled.
For relaxation he bought a billiard table – billiards was one of his favourite hobbies – and he also apparently kept a horse, though it’s not entirely clear for how long. As he himself said: ‘One must not make oneself cheap here – that is a cardinal point – or else one would be ruined for ever. Whoever is the most aggressive has the best chance.’
He soon began to feel the pinch. He had to borrow money to pay for the cost of making manuscript copies of three earlier piano concertos, which he would offer to the public by subscription. To increase their profitability, he reduced them to just piano plus four instruments, meaning they could be performed in a salon without the need to hire a full orchestra.
The results, to his surprise, were disappointing, and there now began a cycle that was soon to become a pattern.
The loan was short-term, and he needed to borrow from someone else to pay it off. He turned to his patron and good friend Baroness Waldstätten, the same lady who had allowed her calf to be measured along with Constanze’s, and who threw the wedding feast for him and his new bride. He was, as the saying goes, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.
It has been speculated that Mozart gambled heavily.* Certainly gambling was prevalent at every level of society, and it is more than likely that Mozart put money on a game of billiards or cards, but how much and how often is impossible to say. It is likely he did not bet substantial amounts of money, or it would most probably have been remarked on. But the occasional flutter? More than likely.
What most certainly was remarked on was his predilection for smart clothes, stylish furniture, and the best in food and wine. These extravagances, together with his now seriously high rent, are enough to account for his sudden need to borrow.
A sign of his standing in Viennese society was his application to join the Freemasons, which was accepted in glowing terms. He was admitted to the Zur Wohltätigkeit (‘Beneficence’) Lodge as an Apprentice Mason on 14 December 1784 with these words:
Favourite of a guardian angel. Friend of the sweetest muse. Chosen by benevolent Nature to move our hearts through rare magical powers, and to pour consolation and comfort into our souls. You shall be embraced by all the warm feelings of mankind, which you so wonderfully express through your fingers, through which stream all the magnificent works of your ardent imagination! 34
In a very short time he was promoted to Journeyman, and soon achieved the highest rank, Master Mason. His fellow Masons understood exactly what they were getting, and the kudos he would bring to their organisation.
To become a Freemason was a good career move for a freelance musician, but there is no doubt Mozart was genuinely enthusiastic about it. He was soon composing pieces of music for ceremonial occasions at his Lodge, and he was later described as ‘a diligent member of our Order’.
Another composer resident in Vienna, Joseph Haydn, whom Mozart had come to know well, also became a Freemason. He joined another Lodge two months after Mozart. And, somewhat surprisingly, someone else was about to join both Lodges. All the more surprising since this individual did not live in Vienna, and did not even intend staying in the city for long. But he had im
peccable credentials, and so his membership was fast-tracked.
Yes, Leopold Mozart had decided to come to the imperial capital to visit his son and daughter-in-law, and his baby grandson.
The invitation had come from Mozart and his wife. In fact Mozart had repeatedly urged his father to come and visit them, but had always been rebuffed. Yet now Nannerl, somewhat to her father’s surprise, had married and moved away from Salzburg. Leopold was alone.
As for Mozart, he was extremely keen for his father to see the degree of luxury in which he and his family lived, and to see for himself just what an impact his son was having on musical life in Vienna.
So, at last, Leopold accepted the invitation. He wrote to Mozart that he would bring a former music student with him, a sixteen-year-old boy who was a violinist, keyboard player and budding composer – almost as if that would keep the visit more professional than personal.
It did not begin well. Leopold and his young companion left Salzburg in heavy snow and freezing temperatures in the first week of February 1785. Predictably Leopold caught a severe cold on the journey. He was now three months past his sixty-fifth birthday, and a chilly, uncomfortable journey was exactly what he did not need.
To make matters worse, his son was so busy he barely had time to greet his father, and had even arranged for him to attend a concert on the very night he arrived. The frantic pace did not let up. Leopold, exhausted, wrote to Nannerl:
We never get to bed before one in the morning and never get up before nine. We dine at two or half past the hour. The weather is horrible! Concerts every day and unending teaching, music-making, and composing. Where am I supposed to go? If only the concerts were over! It is impossible to describe the confusion and commotion.
His health was not improving. He thought he had shaken off the cold he caught on the journey, but it was persisting. He had a pain in his left thigh and came to the conclusion that it was rheumatism. His remedy was some burr-root tea in bed in the morning, and not getting up until one o’clock.